Tagged: masq1
The Bar Code Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn
(Cover picture courtesy of Random Buzzers.)
The bar code tattoo. Everybody’s getting it. It will make your life easier, they say. It will hook you in. It will become your identity.
But what if you say no? What if you don’t want to become a code? For Kayla, this one choice changes everything. She becomes an outcast in her high school. Dangerous things happen to her family. There’s no option but to run…for her life.
I’ve heard a lot of great and terrible things about this book in the YA community. Again, this prompts the question: Is it worth the hype?
Well, not really.
Much like Matched, it is an average book, but nothing more. It’s not fantastic and it’s not terrible, but it falls somewhere in between. An interesting dystopian society, a decently paced plot and an okay cast of characters…yet there is nothing really exceptional about The Bar Code Tattoo. Some aspects of it are Orwellian, others remind me of that documentary Food Inc. and still others remind me of The Giver. Suzanne Weyn is a competent enough writer, but she doesn’t really stand out for me.
The Bar Code Tattoo is set in a dystopian future where the fears of right-wringers, left-wingers and centrists come to pass. For the right, it is the scary amount of government overreach and a complete lack of respect for the Constitution. For the left, it is the fact that the poor are pretty much left to fend for themselves while corporations take over America. As for the centrists, all this will scare the crap out of them. This is why I admire Suzanne Weyn’s dystopia in an odd sort of way: it combines the fears of all political spectrums into one decently built future.
Kayla is a decent enough protagonist, but is nothing really special. To me she’s pretty much your stock dystopian protagonist: she sees nothing wrong with the society until something happens (like falling in love or someone close to her dying) to make her into a rebel. Highly predictable. The plot is decently paced, but I could predict every plot ‘twist’.
Overall: meh.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
Rape Girl by Alina Klein
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Valerie always wanted to be the smart girl. The pretty girl. The popular girl.
But not the rape girl..
That’s who she is now. Rape Girl. Because everyone seems to think they know the truth about what happened with Adam that day, and they don’t think Valerie’s telling it..
Before, she had a best friend, a crush, and a close-knit family. After, she has a court case, a support group, and a house full of strangers..
The real truth is, nothing will ever be the same..
Rape Girl is the compelling story of a survivor who does the right thing and suffers for it. It is also the story of a young woman’s struggle to find the strength to fight back.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
With a title like this, obviously young readers and sensitive people should stop reading right now. Consider yourself warned.
Rape is an issue that is all too-familiar for people today; it’s not exactly a new issue. But finally, we are beginning to talk about it and hopefully it’s books like this that will help people understand that blaming the victim is counter-productive. And since Rape Girl is written by a rape survivor, it is tastefully handled while at the same time tackling the emotional and psychological consequences of rape, not to mention the social ones.
This is a rather short book, only a little over 120 pages, but it is very powerful. Valerie is a powerful main character who does “the right thing” by reporting her rape and goes through hell because of it. We really feel her guilt, anger, sadness and her struggle to regain her old, normal life. Her friends turn against her, her family acts weird around her and even the teachers at school turn against her, blaming her for her rapists’ reputation! It’s an emotional roller coaster that readers won’t soon forget.
This is not a book you should read if you like fast-paced plots. Rape Girl is a book you read for the message and the characters. And if you read it with an open mind, you may find yourself a much better person for it.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
Fly Away Home by Maggie Myklebust
(Cover picture courtesy of Maggie Myklebust’s blog.)
Clean freak’ [sic] Maggie tries so hard to keep her life in order but is foiled at every turn. The descendent of second generation Norwegian immigrants to America, she grows up in New Jersey, spending her summer vacations on an idyllic island in Norway.Later, in the wake of an abusive marriage, she and her three young children leave America and return to the Nordic Island of her ancestors, where she rekindles a relationship with her childhood sweetheart. Pulled between two worlds, her life continues as she seeks meaning, identity and happiness.
With her true love by her side and three more children to care for, Maggie discovers her traveling days are far from over. Life’s unexpected twists see her return to America before being catapulted to the Netherlands. At last she can begin to make sense of her experiences until, that is, she is on the move again. In the process she learns that life comes full circle, from the hopes and dreams of her forebears to the place where she can finally find peace and come to terms with her past.
Follow this Jersey girl as she flies back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean looking for love and a place to call home.
Blurb courtesy of Maggie Myklebust’s blog.
I have to admit that I had an excruciatingly hard time getting into Fly Away Home. I’ve read memoirs before, and they often do start off with an explanation about the writer’s family, but the introduction was overly detailed for my liking, especially since most of the people mentioned it in do not really appear in the narrative. Yes, it gives us important background information, but there are better ways to give information than such an enormous info dump in the beginning before we even care about the writer’s life story. However, once I finally got past the introduction, I began enjoying the memoir itself.
Maggie Myklebust’s life was certainly not an easy one or a boring one. Her memoir chronicles her imperfect and unhappy first marriage, the struggles after the divorce and during her subsequent marriage to Harry Myklebust, which eventually turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her. Readers will feel the sorrow and stress she went through and will cheer for her at her triumphs. The way she wraps up the story brings her memoir full circle and gives readers the sense that it was definitely a happy ending after so much pain.
What I don’t like is that there are grammar errors, especially in comma usage where there should be semicolons. I caught an apostrophe that was pointing the wrong way and on page 34, I even caught this error: “…with the fowl smelling cream…” You would think that even with a small publishing house, the editors would be more careful than that, seeing as how catching mistakes is how they make their living. Despite these small errors and the info dump at the beginning, Fly Away Home is a pretty enjoyable memoir. However, when Ms. Myklebust contacted me to review her book she said that teens would enjoy it because ‘The most predominant part of my book is my teenage years…’ This is not true. I feel that it really is more suited to adults because most teens would end up supremely bored after the first few pages.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
Blackout by Mira Grant
(Cover picture courtesy of A Dribble of Ink.)
The conspiracy that rules post-zombie America is alive and well. The same can’t be said of the bloggers who dared to tell the truth as they found it.
Now, with too much left to do and not much time left to do it in, Shaun Mason and his team must face mad scientists, zombie bears, and rogue government agencies—and if there’s one thing they know is true in post-zombie America, it’s this:
Things can always get worse.
Being the snarky, rather opinionated person I am, I am rarely lost for words. But after reading Blackout,the last book in the Newsflesh trilogy, there’s only one thing to say.
Wow.
After that enormous cliffhanger at the end of Deadline, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Blackout and when I did, I wasn’t disappointed. Funny, dark, suspenseful and full of plot twists, Blackout was no disappointment. And it even had a satisfying, if not entirely happy, ending. What else could I really ask for?
In Deadline, Mira Grant explains the Kellis-Amberlee virus itself so we can understand things like reservoir conditions and spontaneous remissions. But in this last book, we find out pretty much everything about the virus, including why mosquitoes have suddenly become a vector. As you have probably guessed, this new vector is manmade and Dr. Abbey has her hands full figuring out the structure of this new threat before time runs out.
One of the recurring themes throughout the trilogy is the importance of the truth, but this features even more prominently in Blackout. Shaun, Becks, Alaric, Mahir and a character I won’t mention because it’s a spoiler have some very tough choices about whether the truth is really the best thing. I had serious doubts about their resolve, especially near the end, but the team stays true to themselves. Sadly, one of my favourite characters dies, but at least they go out in a blaze of glory protecting those they love.
And now, to lighten things up, here’s one of my favourite parts of the whole novel (Warning: language not suitable for younger readers):
“I, Shaun Phillip Mason, being of sound mind and body, do hereby swear to poke dead things with sticks, do stupid shit for your amusement and put it all on the internet where you can watch it over and over again.” (Pg 4)
That pretty much sums up Mira Grant’s sense of humour, doesn’t it?
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Deadline by Mira Grant
(Cover picture courtesy of Orbit Books.)
Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organization he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn’t seem as fun when you’ve lost as much as he has.
But when a CDC researcher fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun has a newfound interest in life. Because she brings news—he may have put down the monster who attacked them, but the conspiracy is far from dead.
Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.
After Feed cured me of my irrational zombie fear, I decided to read the second book in the Newsflesh trilogy: Deadline. I’m really glad I did because it builds on things hinted at in the first book very well. If you don’t want to read any spoilers, I suggest you stop reading right now.
It’s been a year since Georgia died, but since Shaun talks to her in his head constantly, it feels like she’s a major character. Shaun talks to her aloud and accepts that he is mentally ill because he doesn’t want to let go of his adoptive sister. His point of view is very different from George’s because he’s more reckless and unsure of himself and what he’s doing. I guess that’s a natural response to shooting your sister in the spinal column after she’s been injected with live Kellis-Amberlee. Deadline follows Shaun’s quest for the truth and throughout the journey he has a lot of character development as each new, horrible revelation comes to light.
The focus of Deadline isn’t politics like it was in Feed. Instead, it focuses a lot more on the Kellis-Amberlee virus itself. The level of detail Mira Grant has put into her world-building is fantastic and, unlike a lot of zombie novels, she explains what causes people to turn into zombies. Truly, this is science fiction at its finest because it has a fast-paced plot while paying attention to character development and world-building.
I give this book 5/5 stars.